Before anyone goes all Daily Mail and huffy
(“Oh, the obesity amongst the youth of today exacerbated by the immoral, sugar-plying
activities of such groups! ‘Tis the End of Times!!!”) let me note that this is a
charitable organisation whose purpose is to make birthday cakes for children
who would otherwise not have one.

Pause and think about it for a moment. No
birthday cake for a child. That’s a pretty huge thing and a desperately
poignant absence for a small person. Or even a big person. Think back to your
birthdays as a child; I’m sure many of you have some decent and joyful memories
of parties, presents and cakes. Oh, the cakes. Often the ones carefully crafted
by mothers, fathers,
grandmothers and so forth are the most memorable.

Why so memorable? Particularly those that
may have been a bit wobbly about the edges? Homespun, if you will? Probably
because the aforementioned familial maker of the cake loved and cared about –
and hopefully still does - the birthday child. Also the makers had the
time, the kitchen and enough extra money to bake the cake. Seemingly basic
elements that many take for granted.

Whereas Free Cakes for
Kids helps children who just don’t have some, many or all of those elements that make for a
stable family life.

I had a chat with Tessa Lidstone, chum and
press officer of FCFK Hackney in London, which provides birthday cakes for some very
vulnerable children. Hackney suffers pretty acute levels of poverty. In
2012 Hackney South and Shoreditch came 14th in nationwide a list of
child poverty by parliamentary constituency (37% of children) and 20th
in the rankings of by local authority (30% of children). If you think I’m
indulging in hyperbole here’s that the
reference as well as Hackney’s
2013 State of the Borough’s Report on Child Poverty and Family Well-being.
The latter states that, although the borough’s child poverty has been
decreasing year on year since 2007, it still comes in at number 3 for child
poverty amongst all the boroughs of London.

However, as Tessa notes, “It’s not just
financial difficulties but also circumstance that mean a child won’t get a cake
from their family. For example mothers in domestic violence shelters might not
have access to kitchens or just don’t feel up to baking.”

So there are a great number of children in
the area who could do with the treat of a birthday cake.

“What works about the organisation is that
it is a very simple idea.” says Tessa. “It’s matching up people who love baking
with children who don’t have cakes.” Volunteer bakers sign up and offer to bake
cakes in their own homes. The FCFK committee receives a request for a cake and
then sends out an email to see who is ready, willing and able to do it. Turn
around times are pretty quick but then, so it seems, are the responses of
volunteers: “[These] email requests get snapped up so quickly that I am sometimes hard pressed to make a
cake." laughs Tessa "It’s a common complaint amongst the volunteers. But what’s amazing is
that these requests aren’t lingering.”

Members of the FCFK Hackney Committee, with Tessa Lidstone on the far left.

But just how do these requests make it to
FCFK, never mind to the volunteers to then result into some pretty smashing
looking cakes?

“We advertise ourselves as a confidential
service.” says Tessa. What follows are requests and referrals from a number of
institutions, groups and individuals such as schools, childcare centres, domestic
violence refuges, the Red Cross or social workers.

“Once an organisation has done one referral
they find it so easy that they do a lot. We try and find someone who will be
the advocate for the family and child, such as a social worker or family
support worker.” This advocate is important. Once the cake is made the baker arranges to meet them at a neutral place to hand the cake over. “The baker
will very, very rarely come into contact with the child or even the parent. We
just make cakes and don’t want to go beyond that with a baker getting involved
in a situation or (unintentionally) causing a family to feel in debt. Families
don’t want people to know about their situation.” Hence FCFK’s emphasis on
confidentiality.

A Peppa Pig-themed
confection with young George clutching his dinosaur. Oh, the knowledge I
have gained of popular children's culture since becoming a mother. For
the non-parents reading this, click on the link. I dare you...

Yet once the cake arrives, be it at school,
the childcare centre or even at home “… that child for that day is the special
one.” Tessa observes. “It’s not just about the cake but it’s about how much
fuss people make of the child. As a child it does matter if everyone ignores
your birthday.” It doesn’t take much to imagine what all that lovely fuss and
attention does for a child living in otherwise difficult circumstances.

So does the child ever find out who made
their birthday cake? Who helped create the fuss?

“It’s up to the advocates and families but
I am sure that they do say it’s from this mad group of bakers who like making
cakes for people they don’t know!”

Which leads on to the question, what’s the
appeal of baking for a stranger? Why not buy a cake from a shop?

“It’s a tangible way of seeing where your
donation to your community is going. You know specifically that a child in your
area has a birthday cake because of what you
have done. It’s not £5 that’s gone to pay for a big charity's admin costs but it
is a specific thing.” says Tessa. “Also, those with children know how important
it is for the children to have cakes. Other bakers remember cakes that they
have had. Some had tough upbringings and didn’t have cakes. [For my family]
birthdays were always special occasions and my mum would go all out. It was a
home made cake, not a professional one or made at Tesco. The child may be too
young to realize the significance but the volunteers do.”

But in this world there’s cake, as in the
swiftly cobbled together lemon madeira or muffin variety, and then there CAKE,
elaborate and carefully crafted confections that bring extreme pleasure to both
makers and recipients. The creations of FCFK Hackney certainly fall into the
latter category. But how does the volunteer find out what themes, colours or flavours
a child likes?

A rainbow cake with an ingenious construction of cumulus clouds from marshmallows. Who wouldn't be happy with that?

Hooray for the referral form: “In it
there’s a question about what the child likes.” Sponge or chocolate cake are the standard base with lashings of butter cream whipped into some sort
of fantastical marvelousness inspired by themes. “That could be a favorite
colour. Parents’ will note the child’s preferences, maybe ask for birthday
numbers or the child’s name. Princesses or ‘something girly’ are recurring
themes. But our bakers are not creatively restricted. We are lucky that some of
our bakers go all out so they love working with the theme and they like a
challenge. It grabs our baker’s imaginations.”

So there’s a creative outlet for the bakers
and the chance to develop some skills with every baking challenge. FCFK Hackney
also offer the volunteers a baking master class just before Christmas as a
chance to enhance their talents. But there’s also a bit more to it, as Tessa
explains “We do the master classes as it can get quite lonely being part of an
organisation where you don’t meet so many people. You get an email, make a
cake, drop it off. We do social events so bakers can meet other bakers and
learn the reasons why other people are involved.”

It’s not just the bakers themselves benefiting
from such classes. FCFK Hackney started arranging baking workshops with some of
the referring organisations, creating opportunities for parents, children and
referrers to all make and bake together.

There isn’t a formal feedback process from
cake recipients to cake bakers. Yet it’s in heartwarming spaces like the workshops,
spaces where communities gather to enjoy together the simple act of making,
that FCFK Hackney are told just how much their cakes are appreciated.

It’s a special
thing this whole making and baking malarkey. I can see a PhD needs writing
about the power of buttercream as a social bond. As I’ve noted before,
ephemeral as these cakes may be, the sheer pleasure the bakers find in making
them and the joy the recipients have in receiving them is the stuff of which
memories and strong communities are made.

And in these difficult times we need as much
of that pleasure, joy and hope as we can get.